The Irish Preposition Chuig Which form is supposed to go after the Irish preposition chuig with or without a definite article? For instance, in the book, "Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge" by Nollaig Ma Con

Shawn

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The Irish Preposition Chuig Which form is supposed to go after the Irish preposition chuig with or without a definite article? For instance, in the book, "Leabhar Gramadaí Gaeilge" by Nollaig Ma Congáil, the following examples are listed: 1. chuig an teach / na tithe = to the house / houses 2. chuig an siopa = to the house 3. chuig an gcistin = to the kitchen 4. go maith chuig an nGaeilge = good at Irish These all seem to be using the nominative forms. However, the example sentence at the entry for "beach" on focloir.ie (See http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/beach?q=beach) has the following example: 1. We're going to the beach. = Táimid ag dul chun na trá. This sentence seems to be using the genitive singular form since it is using the article "na" instead of "an". Is this just a data error on focloir's part or is the grammar book incorrect? If the grammar book is correct here, then I am guessing it should be "Táimid ag dul chun AN trá." instead. Correct? Thanks in advance. :)

Jan 19, 2015 6:10 PM

Answers · 8

Hi Shawn, The preposition chuig is followed by "an tuiseal tabharthach" (the dative case). This doesn't cause any change at the end of the word (which is why you thought it was the nominative) but if the noun begins with b,c,f,g,p there will be an urú (i.e. banc, chuig an mbanc, gairdín, chuig an ngairdín etc). The preposition "chun", on the other hand, takes an tuiseal ginideach (the genitive case). The easiest way to avoid all this is to use "go dtí" which takes an tuiseal ainmneach (the nominative case (tá mé ag dul go dtí an banc). Hope this helps. Eoin

January 19, 2015

"Chuig" and "chun" are two different prepositions with much the same meaning (their pronomial forms are identical: chugam, chugat, etc.). "Chuig" is followed by the dative case (in examples 3 and 4 which you give, the eclipsis tells you that it's dative: in the nominative case there would be no eclipsis. Most nouns have the same form in nom. and dat. but the rules for mutations with the article are different between the two cases). "Chun", as you spotted, is followed by the genitive case. So all the examples are correct.

January 19, 2015

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